Croft trilogy finale leaves fans wanting more

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-Editors Note: This story contains plot details that can be considered as spoilers.

Fighting jaguars, escaping tsunamis, solving puzzles and raiding tombs. The third installment in the reboot of the Lara Croft franchise is action-packed and keeps players on their toes. “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” is a dramatic end to Croft’s origin story and showed gamers a more detailed version of the famous character’s story.

The Croft franchise, first released in 1996, was directed toward the teenage male audience. Designers originally created Croft as a rich, scantily-clad badass while in the more recent versions, her tight shorts and crop top duo has been replaced with cargo pants and a tight tank top. In addition, the game creators traded her dual Heckler & Koch universal self-loading pistols for a bow and arrow and climbing axe set.

During the original games, the storyline followed Croft as she battled evil, solved puzzles and found trophies or artifacts. The reboot offers players a more open world and allows for side quests and missions that follow alongside the main storyline.

The trilogy includes three games: “Tomb Raider,” “Rise of the Tomb Raider” and “Shadow of the Tomb Raider.”

The game companies Square Enix Co., Ltd. and Feral Interactive released “Tomb Raider” in 2013 as a reboot of the original franchise. Intended as a trilogy, “Tomb Raider” set the stage for a detailed look into Croft’s backstory and her fight against an evil organization named Trinity.

The third game begins with Croft and her companion Jonah Maiava and their vigilant fight against Trinity. Croft and Maiava have been traveling the world to take down Trinity cells, and while in Cozumel, Mexico, Croft slips inside a tomb Trinity recently excavated. While there, Croft finds a Mayan dagger surrounded by warnings of what is called The Cleansing, and despite the warnings of an apocalypse, Croft takes the dagger in order to keep it out of Trinity hands.

After escaping the temple, the dagger is stolen from Croft, and she learns that by taking the dagger, she has triggered the apocalypse. Immediately following this discovery, Croft is forced to escape Cozumel due to an incoming tsunami.

Throughout the rest of the game, Croft searches for a silver box that the dagger fits into like a key to help prevent further world destruction by searching through tombs and fighting Trinity’s hold in a preserved Mayan civilization called Paititi. After the ruler of Paititi named Unuratu is murdered by Trinity, Croft helps her son fight against Trinity control and restore peace to the land.

While playing the game on Xbox One, it displayed multiple glitches. With any game, glitches are a common occurrence, but some are easily resolved.

For every game of the reboot trilogy, Croft is given a default outfit, as well as the option to wear previous outfits or outfits she has created. Instead of displaying Croft in the chosen outfit or even switching to the default outfit, Croft’s torso disappears during cutscenes.

Cutscenes are scenes with a game that the gamer is not able to control any of the actions happening around the character they are playing. These are commonly used to push the plot forward.

For the first two games, the glitches could be seen as acceptable, but by the time the third game came around, it’s a glitch that should have been fixed.

Additionally, the ending leaves players with a major plot hole. While trying to stop Trinity from recreating the world, Croft becomes the vessel for a Mayan god and sacrifices herself in order to save the world. As the knife is thrusted towards Croft’s heart, and a glowing light above Croft’s chest stops the knife from plunging into Croft.

The screen goes black. Three days later in game time, Croft is miraculously healed.

Despite the glitches, “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” left readers with a compelling storyline and heart-racing action scenes. With no announcements of another game, players are left to wonder if they will see more of Lara Croft in the future.